


Shelter Me Too

by GotTheSilver



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Birthday, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 00:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1798765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotTheSilver/pseuds/GotTheSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What’s wrong?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Why does something have to be wrong?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“It’s almost midnight, Stiles.  It’s cold, and you’re in the middle of the woods talking to a werewolf.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter Me Too

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wasn't ever planning on writing a post 3b fic because I plan on keeping everyone alive in all my future fics, but this happened.
> 
> contains: talk of death, grief, mourning. be be careful with yourselves.
> 
> written for a fic_promptly prompt: lonely birthdays suck
> 
> also a fill for my trope bingo card: celebratory kiss

It’s always cold in the preserve on nights like these, even Derek feels it. It makes his bones feel stiff and brittle, makes his fingers feel like they’re on the verge of freezing off even if he knows that’s impossible for him. Kicking a rock to give himself something to do, he stops dead in his tracks and sniffs the air.

“What are you doing here, Stiles?”

“I — walking?” Stiles answers with hesitance, stepping into the clearing that Derek is standing in.

“Since when do you do that?”

“Since when do you care?”

Derek shrugs, not turning around to face him. “You’re the one always insisting I care about you.” When Stiles steps into his eyeline, Derek casts a quick glance over him. He doesn’t look great; shadows under his eyes telling of the sleep he’s still not getting; body thinner than Derek remembers it being before the nogitsune; fingernails bitten to the quick. “What’s wrong?”

“Why does something have to be wrong?”

“It’s almost midnight, Stiles. It’s cold, and you’re in the middle of the woods talking to a werewolf.”

“Next you’re going to ask if my dad knows where I am,” Stiles mutters, scuffing his sneaker in the dirt.

“Does he?”

“He’s at work,” Stiles says, like that’s an answer in and of itself.

“Scott?”

“He’s —” Stiles breaks off and shakes his head. “Grief counselling. I don’t — it’s not easy for me to be around him after he goes to that.”

“You don’t —”

“No.” Stiles shakes his head. “No.” He sits on the floor like the strings holding his body up have been cut, and drags his fingers through his hair. “When my mom died, they made me go. I didn’t talk.”

Derek looks to either side and then down at Stiles and — he can’t walk away. He’s an asshole, but he’s not that much of an asshole. “You didn’t talk?” he says, sitting opposite Stiles, his knees knocking against Stiles’ folded legs.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stiles waves a hand. “I’ve heard all the jokes.” Rubbing a hand over his chin, Stiles looks at Derek. “You must know what it’s like? Not wanting to tell people because then it makes it real? It’s something you have to deal with?”

“Yeah,” Derek says quietly. “I know what that’s like.”

For a while, all Derek can hear is scratching noises from the animals in the woods blending with the steady thud of Stiles’ heartbeat. It gets under his skin, makes his blood feel warmer, his bones not as stiff.

“I still expect to see her,” Stiles says at last, not needing to say who he’s talking about. “When I’m at school. Or I’ll see a car that looks like hers and —”

“It doesn’t stop.”

“No. It doesn’t. I didn’t think — I didn’t think it would be _her_.”

Derek’s seen a lot of loss in his life. He’s seen children die, seen teenagers die, seen adults die — all of it senseless, none of it meaningful — but somehow, he knows what Stiles means. No one expected Allison to die. “Yeah.”

“Scott doesn’t blame me,” Stiles says, looking at his hands. “I don’t know what —”

“It wasn’t you. None of it was your fault.”

“I know.”

“Your heart skipped.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, a faint hint of a smile on his face. “I know it intellectually. Otherwise... it varies.”

Impulsively taking Stiles’ hand, Derek threads their fingers together and squeezes. “These hands aren’t responsible for what the nogitsune did. _You_ aren’t responsible for what the nogitsune did.”

“I hurt you.”

“The nogitsune hurt me. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I — I don’t know if I’ll be able to believe that.”

“Try,” Derek says, letting go of Stiles’ hand. He doesn’t make a comment when Stiles doesn’t move his hands from resting against Derek’s leg. If the touch helps Stiles feel grounded, then that’s the least Derek can do for him.

“How do you — no, forget it.”

“Stiles.”

“How do you go on?”

“I — I’ve never thought about it.”

Stiles’ fingers are tapping out a pattern on Derek’s leg, and he stares off at something behind Derek before he speaks again. “Is that the key? If you don’t think about it, then it can’t drown you?”

“Do you feel like you’re drowning?”

“Yes,” Stiles says, meeting Derek’s eyes. “And I don’t think anyone is going to hold me up.”

Derek could tell him he’s wrong; could tell him that Scott, the Sheriff, Melissa, would always be there to hold him up, but he knows that’s not what Stiles wants to hear. It’s not what Stiles will believe. “Sometimes you have to hold yourself up,” he says, hand covering Stiles’ tapping fingers. “And if you can’t do that, you find someone who’ll pick you up when you fall.”

“I think you’re mixing your metaphors.”

“Maybe so,” Derek says with a smile. “But you know what I mean.”

“I do.” Stiles turns his hand over so that they’re almost holding hands. Derek doesn’t pull away. “Hey,” Stiles says. “Is it past midnight yet?”

Derek looks up at the sky and shrugs, returning his gaze to Stiles’ face. “Probably. Why?”

“Happy birthday to me.”

“It’s your birthday?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, you don’t have to get me a present.”

“Seems like you deserve one.”

“For what? Surviving?”

“Yes,” Derek says bluntly.

“Oh.”

“And — close your eyes.”

Stiles raises an eyebrow for a moment, but then acquiesces, and Derek watches as his eyes close. Swallowing, not quite believing he’s going to do this, Derek kneels and cups Stiles’ face with his free hand. There’s a sudden hitch in Stiles’ breath and Derek can’t hear anything else over the blood rushing in his veins. Pressing his dry lips against Stiles’ mouth, Derek breathes in before doing it again, his thumb stroking Stiles’ cheekbone. It’s absolutely ridiculous how terrifying this is; how the rough texture of Stiles’ lips makes Derek’s heart pound; the slight gasp Stiles lets escape making Derek’s stomach go hollow.

“What —” Stiles’ eyes open as Derek moves away carefully. “I don’t —”

“Happy birthday.”

“Okay.” Stiles narrows his eyes at him, and holds onto Derek’s hand. “Was this just a — could this, um, happen again?”

“Do you want it to happen again?”

“Yes.”

“Then it can happen again.”

There’s a pleased flush on Stiles’ cheeks and Derek imagines his face probably looks much the same. Squeezing Stiles’ hand, Derek makes to stand up, pulling Stiles with him. “You should get home.”

“Yeah.” Stiles looks through the trees, presumably to where his jeep is parked. “Will you — people are coming over tomorrow, I mean, today. Tonight. There’s going to be cake and I. You can come, if you want.”

“What time?”

“Six?”

“I’ll be there.” Stiles’ face lights up in a smile that Derek hasn’t seen in far too long. Giving into the urge, he holds Stiles’ face between his hands and kisses him again. “I’ll see you later,” he says. “Please get some sleep.” When Stiles nods, Derek lets him go, listening to his footsteps until he hears the jeep drive away.

Looking up at the stars, Derek sighs, a sense of peace settling in his stomach. “You’d like him, mom. He shares your birthday.”


End file.
